


Therapy and Grocers

by moonstruckmidnight



Series: self-indulgent avatarsona au [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, i’m not creative, joseph spokes is just joe spooky, kaitlyn is a better cult leader than maxwell rayner and you can fite me on that, very self indulgent!, what about it, when your friends care more about your mental health than you do, yes i was buying a whole bottle of ketchup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckmidnight/pseuds/moonstruckmidnight
Summary: Statement of Joseph Spokes, regarding the two people at his place of work. Original statement given April 13th, 2009. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.Statement begins.
Series: self-indulgent avatarsona au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776343
Kudos: 3





	Therapy and Grocers

Statement of Joseph Spokes, regarding the two people at his place of work. Original statement given April 13th, 2009. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

-

Okay. I’m not crazy, I’m not on drugs, and I have property damage to prove it. I don’t know exactly what I saw, but. This is definitely among the top five weird customer experiences.

It was the middle of the day. Very bright, very hot. Way hotter than an April day normally is. I was sweating and uncomfortable in my long sleeve uniform shirt, but someone walked through the door, so I had to keep my customer service smile on regardless.

But this customer. I couldn’t tell if they were a guy or a girl. Maybe neither. Maybe both. Who knows. They were wearing bright neon clothing, and there were—little patterns, patterns that seemed to shift the more I looked at them. When I got close to them, they had this—really strong smell, like, salty? And—the air was a lot colder around them. They spared me a glance as they entered, and I—I was standing on solid ground, okay, didn’t leave it, and they made me feel like I was falling. I couldn’t breathe, and everything just—felt really cold, and my body wasn’t responding to me. Then they looked away, and it was gone.

But I didn’t imagine it. I stayed—back. I walked to the other side of the store, took a moment to catch my breath. They looked like they knew what they wanted, too, so I wouldn’t have to interact with them either. But—the store suddenly seemed a lot bigger, the aisles a lot longer. I definitely had to walk a lot more to get to the other end, far away from the strange customer. That—I don’t know. I—it was weird. Just—weird.

It took a bit longer before anything weirder started happening. I caught my breath, and was waiting at the check out for when the customer decided they were done. I remember thinking: they’re almost done, they’ll leave soon.

And then another lady came in.

Our door is a sliding door, automatic. The newcomer slammed it to the side, hard enough that when she entered, the door didn’t close after her. She had these really cool boots, actually, black lace up thigh highs with really high heels that she could probably kill me with. All her clothing was black—she was a really cool looking goth, and if she hadn’t just broken the door, I’d’ve just spent a moment to say thanks to whoever brought her my way.

But she definitely wasn’t here for me.

She stepped inside and—the lightbulbs started blowing out. One by one, starting from where she was standing all the way to the end of the store. And when the lights went out—it was the middle of the day. The middle of the day. We should’ve had adequate lighting from the windows. But instead, a wave of darkness just covered everything, until it was difficult to see five feet from my face.

From the other end of the store, where the first weird customer was, there was a loud sound. Like a plastic bottle had been dropped and spilled all over the floor. I remember thinking: I’ll have to clean that up later. It was such an odd thought to have at the time. All the lightbulbs explode, weird darkness, a store that’s too long, and here I am, worrying about cleaning up a dropped bottle. I guess that’s what happens when you work for too long, huh.

So anyway, the lady. She was close enough that I could still see her, despite the weird darkness. She cupped her hands around her mouth and took a deep breath, and then she yelled a name. Elijah.

The neon one stepped out from where they were, and I could see them even through all this darkness. But it hurt to look at them. And—this sounds weird, but… It looked off that they were standing still.

They said something back, irritable, and the goth one just crossed her arms. Said that they had a therapy session in half an hour, Eli, and that they couldn’t just keep skipping. Elijah, or Eli, whichever one, just asked a question that I should’ve been a lot more concerned about: And what are you going to do if I don’t, Kaitlyn?

And then the goth one—Kaitlyn—smiled. And then something melted out of the shadows to stand next to her.

It looked—weird. No, not weird. Terrifying. I can’t even say what it was, even now, after having hours to have thought about it. It just—it looked like it didn’t have a shape, or that the darkness was its shape. I hated it. Everything in me wanted to look away, so I did. I looked away, closed my eyes like it was one of those “if you can’t see it, it can’t see you” scenarios, like it would help.

That’s when the screaming started.

It wasn’t a lot of people, and at first, to be honest, I thought I was the one screaming, and clapped a hand over my mouth. But no. It wasn’t. It took me a second to realize, but it was the customer. Elijah.

Kaitlyn laughed. I looked up in time to see the… monster, because there’s no better word for it, move forward, towards the neon customer, who was backing away. Then neon—took a random item from the shelf, tossed it into their right hand as if they were weighing it, and then pitched it at the window. It shattered. The object sailed through the space where it was.

Kaitlyn started to say something, and then Elijah flipped her off and jumped out through the window.

We’re on the third floor.

Kaitlyn just sighed and walked over to the window—or, I think she did, because after some point she just disappeared into the darkness. There was a sound like someone walking on broken glass, too. And then she said, “You can’t run from me forever, Eli!” like that’s a perfectly normal thing to say to a dead body. Because we’re on the third floor. You just don’t survive jumping out of that.

And then she sighed, and all the darkness disappeared. All of it. The lights were still broken, but now I could see. Kaitlyn was leaning out of the broken window, one hand on the shattered edge and the other holding back her dark, cherry red hair. She pushed herself back up after a moment, paying no attention to the bleeding marks that must be left on her hand. The monster was gone, like it never existed.

She looked up, locked eyes with me, and seemed to realize where she was. She looked around for a moment, taking in the damage, and the bottle of—ketchup. There was a bottle of ketchup splattered all over the ground. Kaitlyn looked down at it with a disgusted face, nudging it out of her way as she walked towards me.

Up close, she seemed… different. Less terrifying, less like the kind of person who would command a shadow monster and call up a veil of darkness. Her eyes were blank behind her glasses—no, wait, they did that thing where they darkened in response to light, but the only light here was the sunlight from the windows, a little ways away, so I guess they’re shades?—and I could make out dark circles under them, like she hadn’t slept for a week. She had one of those devil horn headbands, you know the ones, and she honestly just seemed like a goth who was too tired to put too much effort into full regalia.

I can’t believe I just called a goth outfit “regalia”. But anyways.

“Sorry about that. Can you tell me if you guys have any sparkling grape juice?” she asked. Her voice was perfectly pleasant, like she hadn’t just done—all of that. I nodded mutely and pointed to the beverages aisle, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t ask me to accompany her. It was enough just maintaining my customer service smile. She didn’t ask, thankfully, and headed over to the beverages aisle. I—hah—I sunk down in my chair, put my head in my hands, and stared at the cash register, and stayed that way until she came back.

Kaitlyn didn’t say anything, just handed me four bottles of sparkling grape juice to scan with a little polite smile. I did so numbly, in a state of disconnect. I think I was going into shock, actually. My eyes caught on the outline of something in the pocket of her black shorts—it looked like a switchblade. When I looked back up at her, her smile was wider, like she caught my glance and knew exactly how uncomfortable this entire situation was making me.

When I finished scanning and she finished paying, there was a moment where we just looked at each other. She was still smiling, and her eyes were still blank. And then she reached out—I flinched back, because I had just seen what she did, and that was without even touching anyone. She didn’t seem to mind, just leaned in and patted my head twice.

“Have a nice day, Joe,” she said, and then walked away. And that was the end of that. When she was gone, out the door that didn’t close behind her, I ran over to the broken window and looked out.

There was no body. There was nothing, save for broken glass. No sign that Elijah had just jumped out. And when I checked the security footage, everything was glitchy and distorted or completely dark. The only sign that anything had happened was the spilled ketchup, the shattered window, and the broken door.

...I hope I never see her or the other one ever again.

-

Statement ends.

Kaitlyn, a woman connected to the Dark… I’ve come across that name before. Almost certainly. I’ll have to ask someone to look for her name in the Archives.

As for Elijah… I can’t say I have any idea who they are. The neon and eye-straining patterns seem to be indicative of the Spiral, but the falling sensation and the way they disappeared after jumping out a window indicates Vast... the implications are concerning. Can multiple Entities take the same person? What would that do to them?

Something to look into.

End recording.


End file.
